. SEEDTABLE

September 19th | #43

This week in Europe: La French Tech

Earlier this week, Macron announced a €5.5 billion late-stage investment pledge from institutional investors to invest more heavily in late-stage VC funds and asset managers.

"We’ll have €2 billion that will go in so-called late-stage funds and €3 billion for funds managed by asset managers specialized in [publicly listed] tech companies" – Emmanuel Macron

This is another fantastic move by the French President, at least when it comes to technology and innovation.

A few weeks ago, the UK was branded "the world's hottest tech scene" mostly due to its late-stage capital growth (and Softabank).

Late-stage investments and lack of liquidity events is one of Paris' (and Europe's, to be honest) biggest problems when it comes to innovation but this move is a step in the right direction.

Many startups raised their Series A (or B) in Europe, but then need to turn to the US or China for growth capital. For instance, just last week, Akeneo raised $46 million in a round led by a Boston-based VC firm.

So today we're going to revisit (and update) what I wrote in March about why Paris is, in my opinion, the most exciting tech scene in Europe.

A week in Paris

I’m sitting at a coffee shop on the 5ème Arrondisement right now.

I spent the better part of this week having coffee with startup founders, employees and investors in the Paris ecosystem. Some were French, most of them weren’t.

After living for more than a year over here, and coming back this week, I think the stunning French city has morphed into a thriving start-up ecosystem.

Great things are happening behind a façade of astounding medieval architecture and as a consequence, Paris is increasingly becoming a great place to do startup things.

But why?

It all starts at the top – government

The government of President Emmanuel Macron believes that technology and innovation should play a key role in the development of the French economy.

A few months ago, the president himself announced his intention to make sure Paris, and the country overall move from being just a “start-up nation” to “a country of global-player technology companies”.

One of the main initiatives comes from Digital Minister Mounir Mahjoubi, who announced that the country would invest at least 150 million euros in funding by 2020, according to